Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Project: Mint Tin MoJo

What do you get when you mix hobby electronics, being cheep, and a caffeine high? Cool sh*t in mint tins!! Well, maybe cool isn’t the right word. Neat? Useful? Geek? Yeah, geek works. (Esp. for the second project).

So what’s on the table? How about a pocket amp that can be used to pump up your iPod or other MP3 Player’s output. (It can also be used to amp out an electric guitar to a set of earphones for play practice that even the neighbors can enjoy). And the second is a very portable battery fueled USB charger.

Notes: First and foremost, these projects are far from original ideas from me. And secondly, this post isn’t meant as instructional. I dig pushing electrons and thought that both of these projects were both simple and useful. That led me to want to put some more spotlighting on them and this is how I’m doing it :).

The Pocket Amp: or otherwise known as the Mint Tin Amp or the Cmoy Pocket Amplifier, is a simple OP-Amp based circuit that can either, as mentioned, rock your ears off or (with a small change to the input socket) be used to amp out your electric guitar to a set of headphones. [This site here] has a detailed explanation of everything from construction to principals involved. But it was on the Instructables website that I first learned about this fresh smelling bit of auditory love.

The Pocket USB Charger: is even more simple and quite possibly more useful. Testing and an update to this post will ensue, but for now … this is effin’ cool. iPod low on juice, but you’re feining for tunes and can only get your hands on a couple of 9v batteries? This lil luff muffin will come to the rescue. The image kinda says it all in terms of construction. As you can see it’s easy peasy and thus there’s no excuse not to try it out. :).